In Focus.

"All About Eve" (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) at 2, 5 and...

September 03, 2000|By Michael Wilmington, Tribune Movie Critic.

"All About Eve" (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) at 2, 5 and 11:30 p.m. on AMC. The ultimate bitchy, vinegary, "inside" look at Broadway theater, laced with venom. The story is a reversal of the sentimental myth of Katharine Hepburn's "Morning Glory." Here, the rising young star is a poisonous schemer (Anne Baxter). Her mentor, modeled on Tallulah Bankhead, is the acid-tongued, tempestuous old trouper Margo Channing (Bette Davis at her acme).

"Blade Runner" (Ridley Scott, 1982) at 8:30 p.m. on SciFi. The peak of sci-fi noir, from, inevitably, a Philip K. Dick book, "Blade Runner" is set in a dystopian L.A. enveloped in high-tech shimmer, blanketed in darkness, rain and gadgetry. Based on Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," It's film noir cubed, with a moody cop (Harrison Ford) pursuing a gang of four androids (led by Rutger Hauer) whose crime is aspiring to humanity. Director Scott and his crew have made a sensational-looking picture that combines film noir and sci-fi to probe a highly dangerous world in which it's hard to tell who is human any more and who is, or who is not, a replicant -- robots that turn deadly when they become defective. One of those who can tell is ex-cop bounty hunter Ford, reluctantly pressed back into service.